Iraq, Politics
Remember the equation set forth by the GOP message machine:
Criticizing President Bush = Hating America
The latest America-hating critic of Dear Leader is the elder statesman of conservative fantasists himself, William F. Buckley. Under the headline “It Didn’t Work,” he writes:
One can’t doubt that the American objective in Iraq has failed… And the administration has, now, to cope with failure..
Mr. Bush has a very difficult internal problem here because to make the kind of concession that is strategically appropriate requires a mitigation of policies he has several times affirmed in high-flown pronouncements. His challenge is to persuade himself that he can submit to a historical reality without forswearing basic commitments in foreign policy.
He will certainly face the current development as military leaders are expected to do: They are called upon to acknowledge a tactical setback, but to insist on the survival of strategic policies.
Yes, but within their own counsels, different plans have to be made. And the kernel here is the acknowledgment of defeat.
So Buckley is one of those cut-and-runners, huh? He’d better watch out for Swiftboaters. Bushistas don’t take kindly to this kind of talk. The next thing you know, they’ll be questioning his conservative credentials.
William is a little too late.
UAE port deal (and Oman Free Trade deal) and it’s importance to impending IRAN WAR……and why Bush must veto anything an interfering Congress might pass to stop the UAE port deal.
March 2006 Timeline:
3/6/06: U.N. debate over Iran begins.
3/1-3/7/06: UAE/U.S. port deal initially planned to take effect (but may now be delayed).
3/15/06: The Ides of March (Beware!!)—Around this date is when I believe Bush will push for Iran War Resolution in the U.S. Congress.
3/20/06: The date that Iran plans on changing from petro-dollars to petro-euros as their medium of exchange for the sale of their oil on the world oil markets, thus breaking U.S./U.K. petro-dollar monopoly.
3/20-3/31/06: First bombs dropped on Iran. Khuzestan province invaded. All hell breaks loose.
Now, how does the UAE port deal fit into this scenario? Is it a quid pro quo deal, in which the UAE’s monetary gain from the port deal is offset by something the Bush administration wants from the UAE? Is it something about the strategic location of the UAE at the southeast end of the Persian Gulf, next to the Strait of Hormuz, that the Bush administration values?
Two countries are located across the Strait of Hormuz from Iran: Oman and the UAE. In October 2005, the Bush administration began two initiatives that may be related to the impending Iran War.
Oct. 17, 2005: the Bush administration notifies Congress that in 90 days Bush will sign a Free Trade Agreement with the Sultanate of Oman. (Effective January 17th, 2006)
Around this same time (October), the Bush administration establishes a secret review group that is to study the UAE port deal, which it approves on January 17th, 2006.
Coincidence? Both coming to fruition in the first months of 2006? And on the same date? I doubt it.
If the Bush administration is to keep open the oil shipping lanes in the Persian Gulf through the Strait of Hormuz after starting war with Iran, then it needs a strategic footprint on the southside of the Strait of Hormuz. From this critical point, both the U.S. and the British will be able to launch a D-Day-like operation, in which a beachhead will be created on the northern, Iranian side of the Strait of Hormuz…a long beachhead stretching as many miles to either side of the Strait of Hormuz as necessary and extending however many miles inland into Iran that are required.
At the same time this beachhead is being established, U.S. forces will also be trying to seize Iran’s Khuzestan province, located at the northwest end of the Persian Gulf. This one Iranian province generates close to 90 percent of Iran’s oil revenue. Anyone capturing this one province, therefore, can bring Iran to it’s economic knees. (Tactical neutron bombs might be used).
In other words, the U.S. controls the Iraq oil fields at present, so why wouldn’t they go after Iran’s singular oil-producing province as well, especially since we’re already in Iraq, and this province sits just on the other side of the southern Iraq/Iran border and has oil shipping facilities on the Persian Gulf like Iraq’s Basra?
Therefore, once I learned recently about the unique nature of this one Iranian province and about the “free trade” deals with both Oman and the UAE in recent weeks, it wasn’t hard to put two and two together.
However, I might be wrong, which I hope I am, but with the Bush administration rolling out the same propaganda tactics they used so successfully in the lead-up to the Iraq War, but applying them this time to Iran, I have a sinking feeling that I’m right.
Just send this in a P.S. to a friend in Kansas [http://tinyurl.com/43jn6]:
“The William F. Buckley story has a ’spook’ angle too, even when this peanutbutter and ‘pat- de foie gras eater’ – (http://tinyurl.com/ol3hv) – had one of his minions in ‘Salon’ publish: “For 50 years, I never talked about what I did in the CIA” – Url.: http://tinyurl.com/n3ygl – Buckley apparently is not an ‘icon’ but just a spycon.”
Henk Ruyssenaars :-)